Category Archives: Climate crisis

Africa’s forests transformed from carbon sink to carbon source, study finds

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Alarming shift since 2010 means planet’s three main rainforest regions now contribute to climate breakdown

Africa’s forests have turned from a carbon sink into a carbon source, according to research that underscores the need for urgent action to save the world’s great natural climate stabilisers.

The alarming shift, which has happened since 2010, means all of the planet’s three main rainforest regions – the South American Amazon, south-east Asia and Africa – have gone from being allies in the fight against climate breakdown to being part of the problem.

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John Kerry urges Australia to take ‘hard-nosed’ approach with world’s biggest fossil fuel-producing countries at Cop31

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Exclusive: Former US secretary of state calls for more demanding steps from Australia as it takes over presidency of next year’s UN climate summit

Australia’s government, which will preside over the next UN climate summit, should gather the world’s 25 biggest greenhouse gas emitting countries and push them to draw up a roadmap to end the era of fossil fuels, former US secretary of state John Kerry has said.

Only by “hard-nosed” confrontation with fossil fuel producers, and reducing their consumption in major economies, would the world be able to tackle the climate crisis, he said.

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John Kerry urges Australia to take ‘hard-nosed’ approach with world’s biggest fossil fuel-producing countries at Cop31

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Exclusive: Former US secretary of state calls for more demanding steps from Australia as it takes over presidency of next year’s UN climate summit

Australia’s government, which will preside over the next UN climate summit, should gather the world’s 25 biggest greenhouse gas emitting countries and push them to draw up a roadmap to end the era of fossil fuels, former US secretary of state John Kerry has said.

Only by “hard-nosed” confrontation with fossil fuel producers, and reducing their consumption in major economies, would the world be able to tackle the climate crisis, he said.

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‘Now is the hour’: Labor urged to speed up fossil fuel phase-out to justify Cop30 pledge

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Despite Australia signing the Belém declaration, Albanese rejected suggestion Labor shouldn’t develop new gas fields

The Albanese government is being urged to explain how it will drive a fossil fuel phase-out, after it joined dozens of countries at a UN climate summit to back a declaration that the world should quickly wean off coal, gas and oil.

Australia signed up to the declaration on a just transition away from fossil fuels at a side event at the Cop30 conference in the Brazilian city of Belém, which finished on Saturday night local time, more than 24 hours after the scheduled close.

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Pelosi calls Trump ‘the biggest con job in American history’ in reply to climate comment

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US speaker emerita criticizes Trump’s anti-climate stance and his remarks to the UN general assembly

“President Trump is the biggest con job in American history,” said Nancy Pelosi, the US speaker emerita, to reporters on Thursday while criticizing his anti-climate agenda.

Donald Trump told the UN general assembly in September that the climate crisis was “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”. But he was “projecting”, Pelosi said at a press conference. The meeting was convened by Democrats on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to comment on the US’s official absence from the United Nations Cop30 climate summit in Belém, Brazil, where 195 countries are represented.

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Tropical cyclone Fina intensifies to category two and could hit NT coast on Friday

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If it makes impact on Friday, it would be the earliest cyclone of the season to make landfall in Australia since 1973

If tropical cyclone Fina crosses the Northern Territory coast on Friday, it could equal the earliest cyclone to make landfall in Australia.

Fina intensified to category two storm on Wednesday night, the Bureau of Meteorology said, and was moving east about 370km north-east of Darwin before making an expected turn south on Thursday.

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Caribbean slavery reparations body calls for ‘mutually beneficial’ restorative justice from UK

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On first official visit to UK, leaders say aim is not to ‘break the British Treasury’ but to find solution to help clean up ‘mess’ left by colonialism

The Caribbean’s slavery reparations body has decried misleading press reports that suggest their aim is to “break the British Treasury” by demanding trillions of pounds, as they call for a mutually beneficial restorative justice programme.

Prof Sir Hilary Beckles, chair of the Caricom Reparations Commission (CRC), which was set up to progress the Caribbean’s pursuit of justice for centuries of enslavement and colonisation by European nations, made the comments during the body’s first official visit to the UK.

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Bhutan PM on leading the first carbon-negative nation: ‘The wellbeing of our people is at the centre of our agenda’

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Exclusive: Tshering Tobgay says his country is doing ‘a lot more than our fair share’ on climate and west must cut emissions ‘for the happiness of your people’

The wealthy western countries most responsible for the climate crisis would improve the health and happiness of their citizens by prioritising environmental conservation and sustainable economic growth, according to the prime minister of Bhutan, the world’s first carbon-negative nation.

Bhutan, a Buddhist democratic monarchy and biodiversity hotspot situated high in the eastern Himalayas, is among the world’s most ambitious climate leaders thanks to its people’s connection with nature and a strong political focus on improving gross national happiness rather than just GDP, Tshering Tobgay told the Guardian.

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Cop30: UN accused of crackdown on Indigenous people – as it happened

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As the summit entered its second week, complex issues remain with anxiety growing over conference outcomes

Colombia will host a first international conference on the phase out of fossil fuels in April next year, according to advocates of more ambitious action to eliminate the main source of the gases that are heating the planet.

The South American country, which has demonstrated strong climate leadership in recent years, is among a group of 17 nations that have joined the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative which held a press conference on its plans at Cop30 on Monday.

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Factchecking five Coalition claims about net zero, from power prices to the $9tn cost

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As Liberals join Nationals in abandoning a 2050 emissions target, we unpick some of the opposition’s talking points

Are you trying to make sense of some of the big claims made by Liberal and National party MPs for abandoning their support for Australia reaching net zero emissions by 2050?

We’re here to help.

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First Thing: Jeffrey Epstein advised Steve Bannon during 2018 pro-Trump media campaign

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Text messages released by US House show convicted sex offender coaching Maga influencer on political messaging. Plus, readers’ favourite photo booth moments 100 years after its invention

Good morning.

The convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein apparently served as a behind-the-scenes adviser to the former Trump official and Maga influencer Steve Bannon during an August 2018 media campaign to defend Trump and his agenda, and to promote Bannon’s media ventures.

What else has been released in the flood of recent Epstein emails? Among many, many other things, one email shows an exchange between him and an associate in which they discuss “girls” and travel. The justice department continues to downplay the possibility that other men were involved in Epstein’s abuse of teen girls.

What’s happening with rest of the Epstein files? Trump is facing the prospect of a politically damaging congressional vote to release the files, after attempts to press two members of Congress to withdraw their backing for it appeared to have failed.

What exactly is climate finance? Who pays it? And who gets it? Sixteen years ago, at the climate summit in Copenhagen, rich and polluting countries pledged to provide $100bn (£76bn) each year by 2020 so that poorer countries could cut their emissions and adapt to a hotter world. Last year, they set a new target of $300bn (£227bn) a year by 2035.

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Climate-sceptic IPA refuses to reveal funders in fiery Senate inquiry

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Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart has previously donated to Institute of Public Affairs but thinktank won’t say if she remains a donor

A thinktank known for its rejection of the climate crisis and a conservation group that has opposed renewable energy projects refused to identify their funders during a fiery Senate inquiry into climate and energy misinformation on Wednesday.

Chair of the committee, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, asked Rainforest Reserves Australia’s vice-president, Steven Nowakowski, who had funded nine full-page newspaper advertisements promoting an open letter attacking a shift to renewable energy and promoting nuclear.

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China’s CO2 emissions have been flat or falling for past 18 months, analysis finds

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World’s biggest polluter on track to hit peak emissions target early but miss goal for cutting carbon intensity

China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 18 months, analysis reveals, adding evidence to the hope that the world’s biggest polluter has managed to hit its target of peak CO2 emissions well ahead of schedule.

Rapid increases in the deployment of solar and wind power generation – which grew by 46% and 11% respectively in the third quarter of this year – meant the country’s energy sector emissions remained flat, even as the demand for electricity increased.

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Agenda for Cop30 agreed as crucial climate talks begin – as it happened

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Ministers and high-ranking officials from nearly 200 countries have gathered in the Amazonian city of Belem, with Brazil insisting this will be ‘the Cop of implementation’

Hundreds lined up for Cop30 on opening morning, with some in Indigenous headdresses and others in trouser suits, writes Dharna Noor, fossil fuels and climate reporter for the Guardian US.

The conference is being held in a massive temporary building in Belem’s Parque da Cidade area. It was still under construction just days ago, but now seems to be ready to use.

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Growth in global demand for ‘green’ office buildings slows amid Trump policies

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Fall reported by Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors as UN calls for accelerated action in buildings sector to meet global climate goals

The growth in global demand for “green” office buildings has slowed after Donald Trump’s assault on environmental protection policies caused a slump in interest in the US, according to a survey of construction industry professionals.

Building occupiers and investors across North America and South America expressed significantly lower growth in demand for green commercial buildings, a shift that “seems to be in response to a change in US policy focus”, according to a survey of members of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics). Reported demand across the rest of the world also fell, albeit not as sharply.

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Survey finds 40% of Australian women without kids hesitant to have children because of climate change

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Research which polled a representative sample of 2,000 people also found over a third of Coalition voters believed the climate would not change at all

About 40% of Australian women without kids say they are hesitant to have children because of climate change, a new survey suggests.

The survey, on attitudes about the impacts of global heating, also found that half of Australians were very or extremely concerned about climate change and two in five believed the climate would be “much hotter” in 2050.

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Jailed UK climate protesters facing conditions reserved for extremists on release

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Exclusive: Just Stop Oil activist was banned from attending gatherings, including meeting a friend in a cafe, without permission

Environmental protesters are being given licence conditions on release from jail that are supposed to be limited to extremism cases.

Ella Ward, 22, was banned from going to any meetings or gatherings, except for worship, without permission from her probation officer, although the Ministry of Justice dropped the condition after she brought a legal challenge.

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Over 100 US leaders to attend Cop30 climate summit as Trump stays away

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Dozens of US state and local leaders will be at talks in Brazil with president’s team expected to send no representatives

The Trump administration appears to be sitting out this month’s United Nations climate talks known as Cop30, telling the Guardian it will not deploy any high-level representatives to the negotiations.

But dozens of US subnational leaders attend to promote their climate efforts.

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‘Long on talk and short on action’: Papua New Guinea leader criticises Cop climate summits ahead of Brazil meeting

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James Marape skipped the meeting last year in protest but will attend Cop30 due to ‘encouraging signs’ on climate finance

Papua New Guinea’s prime minister, James Marape, has criticised Cop climate summits as “long on talk and short on action” but will attend the upcoming meeting of world leaders in Brazil, after pulling out last year in frustration with big emitters.

The leader of the Pacific nation of about 10 million people skipped the meeting in 2024 in “protest at the big nations” for failing to support to the victims of climate change. Marape will take part in the annual UN climate summit, which officially beings in Belém, Brazil on 10 November, due to “encouraging signs” emerging from developed nations on climate finance.

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Climate crisis means super-strength Hurricane Melissa is ‘dangerous new reality’

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Winds of Melissa’s strength are now five times more frequent due to the climate crisis, research says

Every aspect of Hurricane Melissa, the most powerful storm ever to hit Jamaica, was worsened by the climate crisis, a team of scientists has found.

Melissa caused widespread devastation when it crunched into Jamaica as a category 5 hurricane on October 28, with winds up up to 185mph (298km/h).

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